Drew Brees’ calls his ACL tear “a big, defining moment” that eventually led him to play football for Purdue University and the New Orleans Saints. (By Bill Haber/The Associated Press)

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It was during the first half of a high school football regional playoff game in Alice, Texas, that the fateful injury occurred in November 1995.

A capacity crowd of 10,500 had gathered to see Austin Westlake take on the hometown favorites, the Alice Coyotes.

Westlake coach Ron Schroeder called a bootleg for his star quarterback, Drew Brees. The junior took the snap from center, faked a handoff and rolled to his left. As he tucked the football into his stomach, he was struck in the left knee by a defensive end. Brees stumbled to the turf clutching his knee.

"I quit running bootlegs after that," Schroeder said.

For Brees, the consequences were more far-reaching. His season was over, cut short by a torn anterior cruciate ligament. It's a ligament the size of a pinky that passes behind the kneecap, attaching the thigh to the lower leg.

If not for that torn ligament, Brees might not have played for Purdue University and led the Boilermakers to their only Rose Bowl appearance since 1967. By extension, New Orleans might not have signed Brees to a six-year contract and gone on to win the Super Bowl in 2010. And thousands of victims of Hurricane Katrina might not have enjoyed the financial and morale boost that Brees' philanthropic efforts would eventually provide.

But at the time, lying on his back in south Texas, the 16-year-old Brees was terrified. He'd never before faced an injury of such magnitude. It was the first but not the only time the future Super Bowl MVP would have to overcome a potentially devastating setback.

"That was a big, defining moment," Brees said during a summer visit in West Lafayette. "I had seen other athletes tear their ACLs and not come back the same. It really scared me at the time."

Those fears subsided. He had surgery in January 1996 and was fully recovered when his senior year started. Brees led the Westlake Chaps to the Class 5A Division II state title, capping an undefeated season. It remains Westlake's only football state championship.

"At the time, it was the hardest thing I ever had to do, both mentally and physically," Brees said.

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"It was more so mentally getting over the hurdle of coming back from something that I thought at the time was pretty devastating and coming back and having my best year."

Turning point

From Schroeder's perspective, the ACL injury was pivotal for Brees, helping him focus more fully on football. Schroeder, whose 83 percent winning record is among the top five in Texas high school football, said Brees also was an excellent baseball player and had an avid interest in golf.

"The injury put his baseball experience on hold. He lost a year," Schroeder said. "I don't think football was a priority for him and his family until his senior year."

Brees had his pick of sports growing up.

At 12, Brees was the No. 1-ranked tennis player in Texas and defeated future U.S. Open champion Andy Roddick three times, according to The Times-Picayune of New Orleans.

Brees smacked 14 Little League home runs -- an Austin city record -- that same year, the paper said. At Westlake, Brees played infielder and was one of the team's top pitchers.

"Baseball was really the sport I thought I had the best opportunity of playing at the next level," Brees told the media during the week leading up to the Super Bowl victory. Although producing impressive numbers in high school football, including a 28-0-1 record in games in which he started at Westlake, Brees wasn't recruited by major colleges. Notably, neither nearby Texas nor Texas A&M came calling.

His 6-foot, 190-pound frame wasn't big enough to make him a Division 1 prototypical college quarterback. And there was the knee injury.

But that didn't prevent Purdue coach Joe Tiller from pursuing Brees.

"I saw a picture of Drew when he was a sophomore in high school, and his arms looked the size of a pencil," said Tiller, who coached the Boilermakers for 12 years, leaving in 2008 as the program's all-time winningest coach with 87 victories. "He was a skinny kid.

"He wasn't as big as people wanted, and on top of that, he tore his ACL. It benefited us some, but I'm not sure that one thing turned people away from him. I don't think the ACL influenced that many people. It added to it."

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Two colleges offered him scholarships. Brees picked Purdue over Kentucky.

Along with Tiller's pass-heavy offense, Brees brought the program into national prominence. He led the Boilermakers to the Rose Bowl following the 2000 season but lost that final game of his Purdue career to Washington, 34-24.

That same year he won the Maxwell Award as the nation's top collegiate player. Brees remains the Big Ten's all-time leader in career passing yards (11,792) and touchdowns (90).

Despite his record-setting career at Purdue, Brees was not picked in the first round of the National Football League draft as many had expected. San Diego picked him at the start of the second round.

He spent five years with the Chargers, playing little that first year. But by his fourth season, Brees led the team to an American Football Conference West title and was selected to the 2004 NFL Pro Bowl.

In 2005, during his final game with San Diego, Brees was hit while reaching to recover a fumble. He suffered a severe shoulder dislocation that required arthroscopic surgery to repair cartilage tissue. And while doctors said there was a chance his throwing arm might not fully recover, he did not lose hope, in part because of his earlier ACL experience.

"I was able to reference that when I was going through my shoulder," Brees said.

Super Bowl bound

Following his shoulder operation, only two teams -- New Orleans and Miami -- showed interest in signing Brees as a free agent. The Saints signed him.

Four years into the contract, he led the Saints to their first Super Bowl and NFL championship in a 31-17 victory over the favored Indianapolis Colts.

Brees' arrival in New Orleans came seven months after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city, killing 1,800 people. Brees pitched in to help rebuild and restore academic facilities, parks, playgrounds and athletic centers around the city.

Drew and his wife, Brittany, established the Brees Dream Foundation in 2003. Through it, they've raised and contributed more than $6 million toward projects and programs in New Orleans as well as San Diego, West Lafayette and the Purdue communities. The foundation also supports cancer research and care for cancer patients, according to the foundation's website (www.drewbrees.com).

His generosity returns to West Lafayette every June when Brees hosts the PALS camp (Purdue Athletes Life Success program). The camp is free for children from low-income homes; they are selected based on referrals from Lafayette-area schools.

He chronicled his struggles with adversity in a best-selling book, "Coming Back Stronger," which was released in 2010.

"The bad things that seem to happen to him always turn into good," Schroeder observed. "He ended up with (New Orleans coach) Sean Payton, and I think he's a great coach for Drew. That made him.

"If he had gone to Texas or Texas A&M, I don't think we would know who Drew Brees is today. Kentucky might have been OK. But the time he spent at Purdue with coach Tiller really helped him become the player he is today."